Belynda Dunn, the Dorchester, Mass., AIDS activist who battled last summer to get her health insurer to pay for a liver transplant, received a new liver Tuesday at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Dunn was recovering yesterday in intensive care, according to family and friends. "They've got her sedated for pain, but she's doing very well," said her mother, Addie Smith.

Smith and Dunn temporarily moved to Pittsburgh in December to await the life-saving surgery. Dunn, 49, has both HIV and hepatitis C, and her liver function had deteriorated markedly in the last few weeks. Dunn learned early Tuesday morning that her seven-month wait for a liver had ended. Dunn is well known for her HIV prevention efforts in Boston area black churches. She went public with her own problems last July after her insurer, Neighborhood Health Plan (NHP), refused to pay for the transplant because they considered it experimental because Dunn is HIV-positive.

After Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino led a campaign to raise private funds for Dunn's transplant, and a state Medicaid appeals board approved coverage of a liver transplant for another HIV-positive patient, NHP reversed its decision. NHP will pay for any costs above the $240,000 that was raised by the mayor, according to Dunn's employer, AIDS Action Committee. As a result of Dunn's case and that of the second HIV patient, the state Public Health Department is developing guidelines to help health insurers and health professionals decide which procedures are truly experimental and which should be considered part of standard care. "I'm hopeful that this will be a nationally recognized effort," Commissioner Howard Koh said yesterday.

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